Epicor Vantage, Speed - is it really that slow?

Hi, we are in the final stages of evaluating Epicor Vantage 8 / 9 and having been on a couple of customer visits are really concerned by the operating speeds we have seen.

Some background, we are a small make to order manufacturer looking for about 25 concurrent full users plus about 8 MES workshop users. We operate in a fast moving environment with about 1500 active customers at any one time drawn from a pool of 20,000 suspect/prospects, we process about 50 sales order lines a day requiring multi-resource planning [men v machines].

We are moving from our current bespoke SOP+POP+inventory+Workshop control system which has the last 15 years live data on it [written in Delphi on an Advantage client server engine] which is lightning fast.

So we have spent quite a lot of time evaluating Epicor and are pretty convinced that it will do the majority of what we need [ I want all the new features available in V9] But...

We have been on two customer visits, the first was using V.6 on a progress database and the performance although not up to our current standards was OK. The second visit was of much more concern;- A site that has 50 concurrent users on a SQL database using the latest patched V.8 they went live about one year ago. The latency for their guys running workshop MES screens was awful - about 15 seconds after a key press to populate a browse box with data... and main users were very sluggish, to the point of unuseability as well.

My concerns are: -
1] Is this a consequence of the layers of SQL + Progress + .NET?
2] Is this lack of speed normal?
3] Can this be improved on by selecting the progress database?
4] If you throw hardware at it can you significantly improve it?
5] What are real users experience please?

Popular White Paper On This Topic

With systems that are only running 25 users, there should not be a speed problem. Frankly, there should be no speed problems in any system. Epicor also might be having some other issues within their company that you might want to know about. They are currently under a corporate takeover. What this means for their future is unclear, but is it worth investing that kind of money?
I do know from experience that you will not be pleased with their customer support. It takes at least a few days for a response at best. Have you looked at companies like Infor's Visual or ProfitKey? Both have a presence in the UK and known for their product performance, reliability, and support. Though ProfitKey's MES is far superior to the rest, it is worth taking a look before you make your final decision.
I am not trying to bash Epicor in anyway, however, I am just trying to inform you to what is happening.
Best of Luck in the New Year!

Paul,
You should see if you can get the specs on the boxes they're running those systems on. Reillz is right about the fact that they shouldn't be experiencing latency (not about recommending ProfitKey which he does in every post). Hardware horsepower is relatively cheap. With decent servers and workstations even the SQL db should fly. You never know what these guys have. I've worked with small-to-medium MTO shops in the Northeast US who will spend $250 to $500k on ERP software and services but won't spend another $10 to $20k to improve their infrastructure to run it right. You might have run into one of those scenarios. I bet if you did some investigating those workstations the MES guys were running were probably the old ones the people in finance didn't want anymore networked on a Cat3 strung over a steam pipe. Little hyperbole there buy you get the picture.
Full disclosure - Epicor is the bane of my existence. I only compete against them but one must admit they have put together a decent product. Oh and btw - Elliott Associates dropped their takeover bid back in November. I've grown tired of telling people Epicor is on the ropes, they seem to just keep going despite the reports of their impending demise.
Dan

Hi Paul,
I don't know Epicor's ERP package. I have deep experience with Macola,
(new name and woning company that I can't think of at the moment.).
If you saw the package performa adequately using Progress(?) as a backend,
that would indicatee, that all things being equal, the code has the
ability to work well. It would be hard to imagine that the code would be
tuned for Progress.
IN your second set of observations, there are many factors that could be
effecting performance. Infrastructure Design and Database Design,
primarily. You would need to know what else the respective servers are
running. How the database is structured and how well maintained it is.
You would also need to know the network design and port saturation.
In addition, how and where the application has been installed can have a
major impact.
If v.8 is that new, you might want to make sure that this isn't an
atribute of the new code. Find out how much of a major rewrite if any
went into v.8 to move it from v.6.
Also from the Data side, how are the data files setup. Did they have a
ridiculously inefficient product structure, 20 level BOM, etc.
Ask to see more sites if you have doubts, and try to get the vendor to
tune the sites to your specific questions.
Lastly I would advise that you beware of mods. If a business process can
change, change it, rather than get the vendor to modify their code. They
may even offer it free, but beware. Moving those mods to the next version
will be costly and time consuming.
Good luck with your project. There's a lot of ERP packages out there.
Have a great Holiday and a Wonderful New Year.
George

>
>
> Hi, we are in the final stages of evaluating Epicor Vantage 8 / 9 and
> having been on a couple of customer visits are really concerned by the
> operating speeds we have seen.
>
> Some background, we are a small make to order manufacturer looking for
> about 25 concurrent full users plus about 8 MES workshop users. We operate
> in a fast moving environment with about 1500 active customers at any one
> time drawn from a pool of 20,000 suspect/prospects, we process about 50
> sales order lines a day requiring multi-resource planning [men v
> machines].
>
> We are moving from our current bespoke SOP+POP+inventory+Workshop control
> system which has the last 15 years live data on it [written in Delphi on
> an Advantage client server engine] which is lightning fast.
>
> So we have spent quite a lot of time evaluating Epicor and are pretty
> convinced that it will do the majority of what we need [ I want all the
> new features available in V9] But...
>
> We have been on two customer visits, the first was using V.6 on a progress
> database and the performance although not up to our current standards was
> OK. The second visit was of much more concern;- A site that has 50
> concurrent users on a SQL database using the latest patched V.8 they went
> live about one year ago. The latency for their guys running workshop MES
> screens was awful - about 15 seconds after a key press to populate a
> browse box with data... and main users were very sluggish, to the point of
> unuseability as well.
>
> My concerns are: -
> 1] Is this a consequence of the layers of SQL + Progress + .NET?
> 2] Is this lack of speed normal?
> 3] Can this be improved on by selecting the progress database?
> 4] If you throw hardware at it can you significantly improve it?
> 5] What are real users experience please?
>
> Thanks in advance.
>
> And Merry Christmas to you all.
>
> Paul.

At 07:41 AM 12/23/2008, Paul_Hooper via erp-select wrote:
>Hi, we are in the final stages of evaluating Epicor Vantage 8 / 9
>and having been on a couple of customer visits are really concerned
>by the operating speeds we have seen.
>
>Some background, we are a small make to order manufacturer looking
>for about 25 concurrent full users plus about 8 MES workshop users.
>We operate in a fast moving environment with about 1500 active
>customers at any one time drawn from a pool of 20,000
>suspect/prospects, we process about 50 sales order lines a day
>requiring multi-resource planning [men v machines].
>
>We are moving from our current bespoke SOP+POP+inventory+Workshop
>control system which has the last 15 years live data on it [written
>in Delphi on an Advantage client server engine] which is lightning fast.
>
>So we have spent quite a lot of time evaluating Epicor and are
>pretty convinced that it will do the majority of what we need [ I
>want all the new features available in V9] But...
>
>We have been on two customer visits, the first was using V.6 on a
>progress database and the performance although not up to our current
>standards was OK. The second visit was of much more concern;- A site
>that has 50 concurrent users on a SQL database using the latest
>patched V.8 they went live about one year ago. The latency for their
>guys running workshop MES screens was awful - about 15 seconds after
>a key press to populate a browse box with data... and main users
>were very sluggish, to the point of unuseability as well.
>
>My concerns are: -
>1] Is this a consequence of the layers of SQL + Progress + .NET?
>2] Is this lack of speed normal?
>3] Can this be improved on by selecting the progress database?
>4] If you throw hardware at it can you significantly improve it?
>5] What are real users experience please?
Multiple things -
1. Even though it sounds like you're in the selection process, this selction
list is not likely to give you any useful info. Most of the people here
are either the package's resellers, or the package's competitors.
2. A much better resource is an Epicor Vista/Vantage specific list,
including the one IT Toolbox runs. You will get real users there.
3. Even though we're not Epicor users, we have customers who are. I can tell
you what they tell us but your better off posting where they are.
That said, not it's not really all the layers but trying to program for
the common denominator when you have two very different systems under neath.
I would not call it normal, but more importantly not usable.
It will vastly improve with a Progress database, and we recommend that
for all users of Epicor for reasons other than speed. If you are
selecting Epicor, you should also be selecting for their database
underneath which is an asset for companies like yours.
Yes, there are hardware concerns, but that only goes so far.

>1) I continually hear of performance issues even with relatively small
>installations. In this day and age, I view this as unacceptable.
Any performance issue that is going to make a system
is unusably slow is certainly unacceptable. But you
also have to keep in mind there is a huge difference
in systems running against the native database or
a foreign one it wasn't designed for.
>2) Epicor's recommendations for anyone with more than a few users is
>to use Progress - which I also view as less than acceptable in today's day
>and age given how much a standard SQL server has become.
With 60,000+ companies running it and over 10 million
seats sold you have to wonder just what it is that makes
a "standard".

In the interst of full disclosure - I'm the owner of a company that is an Epicor Channel Partner for the Epicor Vantage / Epicor 9 product. I've never posted to this site before, but thought that you might benefit from some factual information rather than relying strictly on what people have heard in the marketplace. Whether you select Epicor 9 or another ERP product, the monetary benefit to me is the same - zero. But hopefully you will reach an informed and good decision based upon more fact than hearsay.

Epicor 9 and Microsoft SQL Server - Epicor connects directly to SQL Server as part of its service-oriented architecture (SOA). Epicor maintains a true SOA that separates client, business logic and database. The Epicor smart client talks to the Epicor business logic layer, which in turn connects directly to the SQL Server database. The connection is native, and by moving the business logic to the middle-tier, the solution is highly scalable and the database becomes purely optimized for persistence. This is true of all modern (e.g. true SOA) business applications. Products whose client code talks direct to stored procedures and triggers within the database are commonly referred to as client-server, a less agile predecessor to SOA and less scalable or adaptable to change.

Layers between the client and the Microsoft SQL Server - Epicor???s multi-layer approach is intentional, allowing us to take advantage of SOA and to provide WAN support and scalability. The database connection information is supplied to the business layer code and so does not need to go through other layers.

Does the Progress "database" play a role when a user elects to run Microsoft SQL Server for their RDBMS? - Epicor customers who elect to run Microsoft SQL Server for a RDBMS do not have data held in Progress. The Epicor smart client talks to a business service (available as an XML Web service) as do all modern business applications designed to scale and fully utilize the Web, and the business service connects directly to the SQL Server database.

The above may clear up confustion regarding Epicor Vantage or Epicor 9 running on Microsoft SQL Server. That said, you still have the option of the Progress database. Progress is an excellent performing database that is easy to administer. Most companies factor in whether or not they have in-house expertise with Microsoft SQL Server or not. And whether Microsoft SQL Server will be required to support any complementary or other applications within their business. If Microsoft SQL Server is needed for other applications, then many companies choose it to maintain a consistent database platform rather than supporting both Microsoft SQL Server and Progress.

Performance - Just about any system could deliver unacceptable performance / response time to the end-users if hardware sizing and configuration isn't properly addressed. Users of many software products including Epicor are guilty of making due with inadequate hardware in infrastructure or not properly configuring what they have even if appropriately sized. Any company that invests in an integrated ERP system should also invest in proper hardware and infrastructure and configuration. You might ask your Epicor or Epicor Channel Partner representative for a copy of the Epicor Manufacturing and Distributionnn 8.03.400 Performance Whitepaper. In August 2007 Epicor completed a benchmark at the Microsoft Performance Lab on the Sammarrish Campus in Issaquah, WA to measure performance of the Epicor Manufacturing 8.03.400 release using Microsoft SQL Server 2005 and the Epicor recommended tier 1 hardware configuration. The application profile for the benchmark represented processing patterns observed and measured at several live Epicor customer sites, over a period of three business days. Testing started with 600 concurrent users. Then benchmark testing \was increased to 1,000 concurrent users and finally to 1,200 concurrent users. Results were compared to the results of benchmark testing performed a year earlier on an earlier Epicor Vantage release. Clearly your need is not for 1,200 concurrent users. Still, the benchmark results may interest you.

Epicor 9 also introduces the availabilty of Epicor Replication Server. This can provide real-time replication of production data to any number of other environments or cloud services. (It works with Microsoft SQL Server and/or Progress.) The user experience is seamless. And workload can be distributed to optimize performance. For example, if the primary database is burdened with a volume of queries that impact performance to a degree you find less than acceptable, then you may want to consider off-loading the query workload to another environment so that optimal performance is once again acheived. Companies of any size can capitalize on this capability if appropriate.

Elliott Associates withdrew their tender offer. And I believe that what motivated their attempt to acquire Epicor in the first place was their belief that if able to acquire Epicor, it would have been a very wise acquisition/investment.

Paul, you already commented that "I want all the new features in V9." Yes - there are a great many features in Epicor 9 that if utilized can deliver rangible benefits to user companies. You might find the AMR Research perspective on Epicor 9 interesting. Here is a link to that piece - http://firstthingmonday.net/2008/09/08/epicor-2/. I've been in the manufacturing software / ERP industry for 26 years. Only 2 of those years have been focused on Epicor product. What attracted me to Epicor was the company's product roadmap to execute convergence of their products and build the convergence stragegy on leading edge (not bleeding edge) technologies that can be further leveraged as they evolve. The execution of Vantage 8.0 through 8.03.400 and now Epicor 9 is proof of Epicor's abilitly to execute. Epicor 9 is not a "release 1 product." Rather, it is the next release of Epicor Vantage, but with an enhanced footprint that incorporates capabilities previously only found in other Epicor products on the convergance roadmap. Epicor's product and business strategy is in stark contrast to som many software companies in the marketplace that have been unwilling to make the major investment in reinventing their product (as Epicor did between Vantage 6.1 and 8.0). Epicor has protected their customer's investment in Epicor software while providing a product roadmap that offers next generation benefits not only to Vantage users, but a migration path (under annual maintenance)for users of other Epicor products on the convergence roadmap. (Again in the interst of full disclosure - I derive no benefit from users of other Epicor products choosing to migrate to Epicor 9.) Many of Epicor's competitors are investing in the development of new software products that they can cross-sell to their customer base accross they multiple legacy ERP offerings in their portfolio of ERP products. This may be of some value to users whose primary needs are being met by their existing legacy system. But is shouldn't make the purchase of the legacy system an attractive option to a company that is seeking a new ERP system to serve them well for the next 10 - 15 years. Now consider the current challenges of the global economy. Epicor has already made the huge investment in the development of Epicor 9. How many companies are likely to make the investment now that is required to redevelop their product from the fround up to take advantage of Service Oriented Architecture (S.O.A.) and Web 2.0?

By the way, since I'm new to ITToolbox - a little background on myself. I left the machine tool industry in 1982 to pursue the growing manufacturing software field where I have spent the bulk of my career. From 1983 - 1991 I worked with Dick Lilly at ProfitKey International. In 1992 I founded Technology Works and later that year was approached by Dick Lilly wh

Here's what makes a standard. Put aside all the legacy systems running
Progress. Now with the slate clear, ask 100 IT professionals what DB they
would choose to adopt as a standard in their shop for both off the shelf and
custom applications, and I think the answer would be SQL. I'm not a
Microsoft bigot, far from it, but I doubt more than one or two of those
people would select Progress - if only for the reason that there are so few
skilled personnel in the market and it is only shrinking, not growing - much
like Novell was for a while - better than Windows, but irrelevant. So,
for an application package to thrive, it can't be designed around a DB that
is not mainstream - and that now means SQL or Oracle.

Paul,
As you can see there's plenty of opinions, aspersions, misdirections, and
long-winded PA attempts at dissolution, available on this site.
Please understand, I have absolutely no interest, in any way, of what ERP
software you use.
What I care about is that you male the right selection for your company's
current situation and needs, and also with an eye to the future. (If you
think it will be there, consider companies with Web modules (retail store,
B-B, etc.).
I'm only trying to give you some guidance and help you be self determinant
in your quest. Marketing Schlock abounds and naturally all the vendors on
this site will act in their own best interest. You can't blame them, as
long as they are up front and honest about their goals.
I was an IT Director in the past and was brought, kicking and screaming,
into the ERP world. Our organization ran like a well greased engine and
outperformed corporate finance at every closing. We were the envy of
corporate IT. We had almost all of the Macola modules (again I don't
where they are or how good their product is anymore, so I'm not
recommending them or telling you to avoid them.)
Once its done right, your company will be enabled. The quality of the
support VAR is also extremely important and can make an implementation
sink or swim.
Watch out for buzz words and things like SOA, etc. If that architecture
strategy is appealing to you and you think you will have a need, go with
it, but remember that acronyms and buzz words are the last refuge of those
who have little to offer.
Basics and Fundamentals will important forever.
Don't let anybody tell you different, the entire configuration is
important, hardware and software and all the configurations within those
areas.

Again, good luck and Happy Holidays.
Not a vendor.
George

>
>
> I am not an expert in this at all - but from following this group and
> from
> some software selections I have been involved with I can say the
> following:
>
> 1) I continually hear of performance issues even with relatively
> small
> installations. In this day and age, I view this as unacceptable.
>
> 2) Epicor's recommendations for anyone with more than a few users is
> to use Progress - which I also view as less than acceptable in today's day
> and age given how much a standard SQL server has become.
>
> Paul
>
> Paul Sita, Ph.D
> Innovative IT Consulting
> 631-549-1685 office
> 516-297-5264 cell
> 631-549-1473 fax
> email@removed
> www.innovativeitc.com> www.innovativeitc.com/typepad.com/typepad.com ERP Blog
> Innovative Thinking. Strategic Consulting. Superior Solutions.
>
>

Performance Benchmark (Continued) - Results were compared to the results of benchmark testing performed a year earlier on an earlier Epicor Vantage release. Clearly your need is not for 1,200 concurrent users. Still, the benchmark results may interest you.
Epicor 9 also introduces the availabilty of Epicor Replication Server. This can provide real-time replication of production data to any number of other environments or cloud services. (It works with Microsoft SQL Server and/or Progress.) The user experience is seamless. And workload can be distributed to optimize performance. For example, if the primary database is burdened with a volume of queries that impact performance to a degree you find less than acceptable, then you may want to consider off-loading the query workload to another environment so that optimal performance is once again acheived. Companies of any size can capitalize on this capability if appropriate.
Elliott Associates withdrew their tender offer. And I believe that what motivated their attempt to acquire Epicor in the first place was their belief that if able to acquire Epicor, it would have been a very wise acquisition/investment.
Paul, you already commented that "I want all the new features in V9." Yes - there are a great many features in Epicor 9 that if utilized can deliver rangible benefits to user companies. You might find the AMR Research perspective on Epicor 9 interesting. Here is a link to that piece - http://firstthingmonday.net/2008/09/08/epicor-2/. I've been in the manufacturing software / ERP industry for 26 years. Only 2 of those years have been focused on Epicor product. What attracted me to Epicor was the company's product roadmap to execute convergence of their products and build the convergence stragegy on leading edge (not bleeding edge) technologies that can be further leveraged as they evolve. The execution of Vantage 8.0 through 8.03.400 and now Epicor 9 is proof of Epicor's abilitly to execute. Epicor 9 is not a "release 1 product." Rather, it is the next release of Epicor Vantage, but with an enhanced footprint that incorporates capabilities previously only found in other Epicor products on the convergance roadmap. Epicor's product and business strategy is in stark contrast to som many software companies in the marketplace that have been unwilling to make the major investment in reinventing their product (as Epicor did between Vantage 6.1 and 8.0). Epicor has protected their customer's investment in Epicor software while providing a product roadmap that offers next generation benefits not only to Vantage users, but a migration path (under annual maintenance)for users of other Epicor products on the convergence roadmap. (Again in the interst of full disclosure - I derive no benefit from users of other Epicor products choosing to migrate to Epicor 9.) Many of Epicor's competitors are investing in the development of new software products that they can cross-sell to their customer base accross they multiple legacy ERP offerings in their portfolio of ERP products. This may be of some value to users whose primary needs are being met by their existing legacy system. But is shouldn't make the purchase of the legacy system an attractive option to a company that is seeking a new ERP system to serve them well for the next 10 - 15 years. Now consider the current challenges of the global economy. Epicor has already made the huge investment in the development of Epicor 9. How many companies are likely to make the investment now that is required to redevelop their product from the fround up to take advantage of Service Oriented Architecture (S.O.A.) and Web 2.0?
By the way, since I'm new to ITToolbox - a little background on myself. I left the machine tool industry in 1982 to pursue the growing manufacturing software field where I have spent the bulk of my career. From 1983 - 1991 I worked with Dick Lilly at ProfitKey International. In 1992 I founded Technology Works and later that year was approached by Dick Lilly who had left ProfitKey to found Lilly Software Associates (the original developer of Visual Enterprise / Visual Manufacturing). Technology Works focused on Visual from 1992 - 2006 (Lilly was acquired by Infor in Oct. 2004). In 2006 I felt compelled to evaluate SMB manufacturing ERP solutions to identify a system that was either new or being re-invented and had the potential to be a market leader through the course of the next 10 - 15 years. Our customers had great experience with Lilly Software's Visual Enterprise in the 1990's and into the early 2000's. I'm confident that companies that execute sound due diligence and who's needs are addressed by Epicor 9 can expect their investment in Epicor 9 to evolve and serve them well through the next decade (2020)providing Epicor isn't sidelined by an acquisition by a consolidator that is primarily interested in maintenance revenue. Epicor's board has successfully fought off such suitors in the past and is likely to continue to do so in the future.

At 12:51 PM 12/23/2008, psita via erp-select wrote:
>Here's what makes a standard. Put aside all the legacy systems running
>Progress. Now with the slate clear, ask 100 IT professionals what DB they
>would choose to adopt as a standard in their shop for both off the shelf and
>custom applications, and I think the answer would be SQL. I'm not a
>Microsoft bigot, far from it, but I doubt more than one or two of those
>people would select Progress - if only for the reason that there are so few
>skilled personnel in the market and it is only shrinking, not growing - much
>like Novell was for a while - better than Windows, but irrelevant. So,
>for an application package to thrive, it can't be designed around a DB that
>is not mainstream - and that now means SQL or Oracle.
So now it's "mainsteam" instead of "standard".
If you asked 100 IT Professionals which one of the
database vendors pays them the most to use it,
no it's not going to be anything but three big ones.
(I don't hear any complaints about anyone using IBM
databases either)
It's the old Fortune 50 company IT exec worried about
his status and paycheck vs. the middle tier manager who
wants to get the most bang for the buck. If companies
are still choosing a database first and their ERP
around it, heaven help them.
If they did it that way, then just like there's only
two answers for a database, then there's only two answers
for ERP's and only two answers for hardware.
Sorry, but don't agree with any of that technology tail
wagging the dog.

Yes and know, depends on how big of a system you are referring to? In the case of a manufacturing environment you should know how much data is spinning, how deep are their BOMs (levels), routings, what "external" report writer is running and who has control of who can write them and send them to the queue, etc...

When we evaluated Vantage we saw some performance issues that alarmed us too. On the other hand we saw and heard of performance issues with Oracle EBS on "Unbreakable" Linux.

What you should do is dig deeper into the cause of the performance issues. In the case of the Oracle EBS issue it was determined that there was a driver issue with the hardware manufacturer AND and a misconfiguration of the Linux system. When pressed we also found out that the company was new to Linux and the *nix environment and knew abslutely ZERO on how to manage the system. They knew MS quite well though and thus was trashing Linux.

I left a Progress environment a little over 18 months ago and can tell everyone that Progress coders are hard to find and getting scarcer by the day. Progress Openedge is a good solution, but it still is hard to find Progress people.

Independent of the ERP solution you select you should dive deep in to the supporting requirements of the system. Specifically, is the system a thin or fat client? Thin, will it run in a browser, fat - will it require Citrix or Terminal Server for distributed sites. SOA is great in one aspect, but will it provide the performance and functionality your company needs?

If you believe that Epicor 9 will deliver the most benefit to your company once properly implemented, then careful attention to your hardware sizing and configuration, operating environment, etc. should prevent performance issues. Ask Epicor to provide you with a customer reference that is happy with the system performance if that will help you get comfortable. If you've already visited customers whose business you can relate to, then a performance reference could be any manufacturer with an equal or greater number of users versus your requirements.

The performance issue appears quite common with most I've communicated regarding Epicor 8.I recommend you visit more companies using Epicor's newest version and pay special interest to the volume of transactions versus their hardware specs. If the transaction volume and the hardware specs are similar to yours and the performance theme continues, your decision should be easier.

I know that Epicor admits performance problems in the past but the "next version" fixes everything. However I also know numerous companies that are getting impatient with that promise.

Epicor's technology is pretty cool, especially during a sales demo. But you need to absolutely uncover if the flip side will be a decrease in performance or not.

Pick an ERP solution first, DB and a lot of other things second. But you
can't ignore the fact that part of supporting any ERP system is supporting
the DB and that requires skills and tools, and using one for which there is
a ready supply of both is A FACTOR in making a good choice. How you
weight that factor is up to the company to decide. But it is a factor.
Part of the reason that companies even give when switching ERP systems is
that they feel "boxed in".

I would chose DB2, ahead if MSSQL, and in freeware, (FOSS), I would chose postgressql.
IBM has always tailored DB2 for speed of access. That is why it is used in most banking systems where error-free rapid access is important.
By the way, speed also is dependent on the architecture on which the system is installed. Any Intel based architecture is generally I/O bound, even if the system is raid based. There is a limit to I/O based on available number of dma channels and ability to use of outboard I/O controllers

At 10:41 AM 12/26/2008, psita via erp-select wrote:
>Sorry Geoff, Definitely not technology wagging my tail.
>
>Pick an ERP solution first, DB and a lot of other things second. But you
>can't ignore the fact that part of supporting any ERP system is supporting
>the DB and that requires skills and tools, and using one for which there is
>a ready supply of both is A FACTOR in making a good choice. How you
>weight that factor is up to the company to decide. But it is a factor.
But that's not what you previously said. You said
there were only two real choices for a DB - and if
it's not one of those forget it. That's a far cry from
"it's a factor".
But "ready supply" isn't quite the only factor either.
How many people do you really need, and how hard is
it to train? Sometimes a better answer than going out
to pay top $ for exactly what you want from headhunters
that don't even understand the technology is to spend
$500 on a training course. And you also have to understand
there's a big difference between the type of company that
has expectations of waking up one morning and saying "oh,
we're a bit under staffed today, go and get me 20 more people".
Companies like that hire hundreds at a time, but don't know
they may only need 2. Companies like that are scared by
only needing 2, it hurts their careers. The make excuses.
>
>Part of the reason that companies even give when switching ERP systems is
>that they feel "boxed in".
Excuses like "I'm boxed in", instead of "hey all my friends
are getting *paid* to use software, why aren't you paying
me too?".
Let's face it, if there were ever only two answers to technology
anything, and only "a ready supply" of a million resources
then no company in the world could ever adopt anything based
on a boxed in technology called "ABAP". (not to mention when
originally you had to sign non-disclosure for documentation
so the vendor could keep monopolistic control on the resources)
I can agree the simple costs involved of support as well as
initial purchase are all part of the factors. But either you
really buy into the "pick the right thing for the business first"
or you don't. Coming up with a bunch of emotional excuses later
to dismiss the original choice is one way to tell.

Johnathan,
We have just went live with Epicor Vantage 8.03 on the Progress/MS SQL database setup. For most companies I can see that this is a good product, but try loading an order with a few thousand items or a few thousand releases. OUCH! We are in the retail sign business creating signs for large retail chains. When a new store opens this could be a few thousand individual part numbers. If they run a promo, a large change can have several thousand locations. In one test case we ended up with 60,000 releases on an order. After 8 hours we killed that order and based on the speed estimated it would take about 4 days to build the order, and then several hours to open it after it was built.We have ask Epicor to help us, build something to allow us to create large orders, but nothing yet. If anyone has any suggestions it would be appreciated.

Epicor Vantage does have a very high percentage of it's user base in the
Retail vertical industry. High order volume is par for the course with
Retail. Have you polled the Epicor User Community yet? Perhaps another
Epicor customer has run into the same problem and has come up with a
solution?

I'm surprised to see Progress db is still part of the solution. Version
8, I thought, was 100% SQL. Perhaps this is slowing things down?

Epicor retail systems was acquire not long ago which is another software CRS
Retail Systems with a great many installed base. With this acquisition it
leap-frog Epicor into the forefront of Retail Management business. The
management of Epicor has made many astute business decisions. I hear good
things about this software. Surely, you can check them out.

We are running in a VM environment. We have MS SQL running on one virtual server with 4 dedicated CPUs and 8 gig of ram, and Vantage/Progress running on a second with similar parameters. We have found through testing that the delay with very large orders is a code issue. It recalculates the entire order after each line is added vs waiting until the entire order is added and calculating once.

To an earlier message about Epicor recalculating the order for each new added line, I can only suggest that your problem is due to poor logic design, where original design assumed that orders are rarely over 1 or two line items. Please look up my earlier response.

Re calculating order after each line. This is poor design. True, after each line you want to know if the credit limit has been reached for the customer/order, but it is not necessary to do it that way. The software should just keep a running total of the amount on the sales order or sales contract.

I have a client that ran around 800 releases on a line and only after implementing release 8.03.4xx did it improve. I cannot imagine someone running thousands of releases on a sales order line in Vantage. You would have to run separate customer orders (I know that is not prefered) or you will have to get Epicor to run a customization using Service Connect to get it to work